


Revisionist History

by Sliceofmooncake (Aesoteric)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fanfiction, Meta, Modern Thedas, Research, Solas wins, Students, Work Contains Fan(s) or Fandom(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-04-29 20:19:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5141219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoteric/pseuds/Sliceofmooncake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unearthing the Inquisition centuries later. </p>
<p>Spoilers for Dragon Age: Inquisition and Trespassers. Also a lot of my own headcanon.</p>
<p>Disclaimers: Rude language, sloppy research and jumping to conclusions like there's no tomorrow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Taken from the blog of Valen F., a student of archaeology at the University of Arlathan.

Among all the monuments of the War of Restoration, few are so controversial as the statue of the woman known as Silverhand. A respected enemy rather than a hero of the people, she is the only member of the Loyalist force to be represented in the Hall of Remembrance and few curators will speak of her. It took two hours and the bribe of a fine vintage from Halamshiral before a minor historian was willing to share what he knew of her. 

“Most of the artifacts from the Loyalist army weren’t well preserved or cataloged, and those we were able to obtain had obviously been altered by zealots, so her name and her lineage has been lost, but she held great rank among the opposing forces. She had a strange title---’The Questioner’ or something like it---and was credited with having magical talent nearly great enough to rival the Great Wolf.” 

While the Wolf Kings of present are known for freely admiring talented individuals among their enemies, at the time of its creation the statue was probably highly inflammatory. It is an unusual statue. Rather than slumped in a position of defeat she stands erect, chin lifted and eyes clear, with her famous gauntleted left hand extended towards the sky. The hand was lost, or so the legends go, when she faced an opponent greater than herself and would not retreat. The prosthetic she wore in its place is reported by various sources to have been made of anything from pure silver to dragonglass, and it was reputed to work like a functional hand due to some lost magical engineering. The depiction of the gauntlet is painstakingly rendered, it must have taken a master craftsman months of labor, “but what is really interesting is the engraving. Under a magnifying glass we’ve discovered something carved into the palm of the gauntlet. It appears to be an animal head, possibly that of a wolf.” But this was centuries before the Wolf Kings took the mark as their sigil, how would it come to be represented on the palm of an enemy? “Either the sculptor or his patron believed there was some connection between Silverhand and the Wolf, but it had to be done subtly to avoid public outcry.” 

With a bit of prodding (and another glass of wine) the historian added, “There is more. The pattern on the hem of her tunic is evocative of courting knots, stylized and complicated knot patterns that couples engaged in courtship would wear to declare themselves ‘off the market’. ” So Silverhand was courting, surely there’s nothing unusual in that? “But to choose to depict these details together with the Wolf sigil may indicate---” And here, sadly, ended the interview, as the Head Historian discovered us and asked me to leave. 

Could Silverhand have had a romantic entanglement with the Great Wolf? Could the statue be, in fact, a hidden love-letter to one who was both beloved and enemy? As I have been barred from the Halls of Remembrance indefinitely my personal inquiries have ground to a halt, but it raises some interesting ideas about the Great Wolf, who as history teaches us took honor-queens to unify the People but never a mistress. All the depictions of Solas, first Wolf-king, paint him as a grim man who took no pleasure in his conquests, or in fact almost anything. ‘Of solemn mien and harsh feature was Solas, Wolf-king; named Liberator and Restorer, he delighted not in the beauty of Arlathan Rebuilt nor in the many who gathered to acclaim him. Distant was he as snowcaps and as cold, and in the line of his jaw was a hunger never satisfied.’ The exact date of Silverhand’s death is unknown, though it is believed she survived to the end of the War of Restoration and may have even fought in the final battle. 

I am only a first-year student at the University and cannot claim to have come to any definitive conclusion as to their relationship one way or another, but I will leave you with this final thought: in the original plans for the Hall, the famous statue of the Great Wolf with his arm extended and that of Silverhand were intended to be placed in opposing alcoves, eyes locked and hands ever reaching.


	2. Chapter 2

16:24:01 GMT  
Now entering Arlathchat

Sora.t.: Valen, where have you been? I haven’t seen you in class for days!

Valen423: Oh, just licking my wounds. I got kicked out of the Hall of Remembrance.

Sora.t.: You got evicted from a national monument? What did you do?

Valen423: I got one of the historians drunk and asked the wrong questions.

Sora.t.: Ooh, which historian?

Valen423: Not that one.

Sora.t.: Too bad. What questions?

Valen423: About Silverhand.

Sora.t.: Why are you interested in her?

Valen423: That’s the thing, NO ONE is. She’s just there in the Hall and nobody ever asks, isn’t that weird?

Sora.t.: I don’t think so. I mean, we’ve all read the plaques in there a thousand times.

Valen423: But nobody talks about her! Even the curators won’t say anything except that she was a respected Loyalist general during the War of Restoration. So I went digging!

Sora.t.: With alcohol.

Valen423: Yes, a very nice Halamshiral pinot noir.

Sora.t.: YOU HAD A SHIRAL PINOT NOIR AND YOU DIDN’T SHARE?

Valen423: It was a birthday present, I was saving it for a special occasion. But ANYWAY…

Sora.t.: Fine, fine. What did your drunken escapades turn up?

Valen423: Didn’t you read my blog?

Valen423: Sora?

Sora.t.: I may not have checked in the past few days.

Valen423: I can’t believe you. Go, read it. I’m not speaking to you again until you do.

Sora.t.: Valen, you kill me.

Valen423: What?

Sora.t.: “Eyes locked and hands ever reaching”? That sounds like something out of a romance novel.

Valen423: You have no poetry in your soul. 

Sora.t.: Are you shipping the Great Wolf? With SILVERHAND?

Valen423: It’s not shipping if there’s historical evidence.

Sora.t.: Like your Adan the Fair fic?

Valen423: Ariston COULD have existed, they had stable-boys back then.

Sora.t.: Adan was not gay. He lived in the most progressive court in centuries, if he was gay we’d have heard about it.

Valen423: You said you liked it!

Sora.t.: I do like it, but the point is it’s FICTION. Look, you’ve got more evidence that Solas was gay than Adan. How many kings do you know that don’t have consorts or illegitimate kids?

Valen423: He had five honor-wives and twelve kids!

Sora.t.: And he was apparently a miserable bastard the whole time. Wouldn’t you be miserable with five wives and no boyfriend?

Valen423: Ugh, point. But no no no no no no, he wasn’t gay, he was pining.

Sora.t.: Are you fourteen?

Valen423: Twelve, as of yesterday ;P. No, seriously, if they were lovers can you imagine the scandal? The Restorer and a Loyalist general? That’d have to be hushed up.

Sora.t.: So there was some sort of conspiracy? Please.

Valen423: Think about it, you can’t establish yourself as king of a new age if you’re openly sympathetic to your former oppressors. It’s an all or nothing deal.

Sora.t.: You’re really getting into this.

Valen423: There were courting knots! Did you actually read my post?

Sora.t.: She could have been madly in love with someone on her own side.

Valen423: No way. There’s nothing in the Halls that isn’t directly relevant to the Great and Glorious History of the elvhenan. If it’s there, it’s for a reason. Go see for yourself.

Sora.t.: I do actually have work to do, you know.

Valen423: C’mon, please? Go look, I’m not allowed back in.

Sora.t.: Fine. Text you later.

You are now leaving Arlathchat.  
16:48:12 GMT

*

 **You have a new message from: Sora**  
“It looked like a cow to me.”

“What?”

“On her hand. It looks more like a cow’s head.”

“Nope, wolf. My sources say so.”

“Your sources. Do you know how hard it was to get close enough to see that stuff without attracting attention?”

“What’d you do?”

“Said I was doing a retrospective on favored sculptors of the early Wolf Kings.”

“Nice. Get any sketches?”

“Yeah, a few. Light’s great in there, actually. Show you later?”

“Yes!”

*

**You have a new message from: Valen**

“What if he cut her hand off?”

“What?”

“Solas. What if he was the ‘greater opponent’ Silverhand faced?”

“This isn’t archeology, anthropology or any other ology anymore, this is just you with a new fandom.”

“But it would be so tragic!”

“Quit trying to turn everything into ‘The Two Trees’.”

“Take a dip in the Void, you love ‘The Two Trees’.”

“You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

“Probably not.”

“You don’t think it’s possible that no one wrote about them because there was nothing to find?”

“Not yet. Meet me in the Archives? I want to show you something.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

*  
“You can’t use Rivell!”

“Shhh!”

“You can’t use Rivell as a source, he’s a joke.”

“He was there.”

“He says he was there. He spends half of his time complaining about some durgen’len writer named Tethys and the other half rambling about something called a Bog Unicorn, you can’t take him seriously.”

“It’s a place to start. Besides, if Rivell was there, then Tethys was there. Maybe we can find something on him.”

*

“It’s Tethras, not Tethys and get this: he was the viscount of Kirkwall!”

“You’re kidding me.”

“And he apparently wrote pulp novels in his spare time!”

“No wonder Rivell hated him, he was competition. Do we have anything more?”

“No, he was a pretty minor player by elvhen standards, and the Department of Durgen’len Studies isn’t exactly overflowing with  
information. Looks like we’ll have to go outside the University.”

“Good luck getting any information out of Orzammar.”

“The other option is the shems. They’ve got their own schools and Kirkwall was a mixed-race city.”

“The shems? Are you crazy?”

“Do you have a durgen’len historian in your closet that I don’t know about?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary:
> 
> durgen'len: literally 'children of the stone', the Elvish term for dwarves
> 
> shems: shortened from 'shemlen', the Elvish term for humans


	3. Chapter 3

Now entering Arlathchat  
18:12:43 GMT

Valen423: News! Some of Tethras’ writings survived the war and were copied to preserve them.

Sora.t.: Where did you get this?

Valen423: I wrote to the Kirkwall Historical Society.

Sora.t.: And they actually answered?

Valen423: I said I was from the University of the Anderfels.

Sora.t.: You told them you were a shem? What if they look you up?

Valen423: Won’t happen, I get the impression the historian I talked to was really glad to have someone interested. He’s not going to spend a lot of time looking up ‘Aaron Fletcher’, student of comparative literature.

Sora.t.: You are so dead if anyone finds out. Does this count as identity fraud?

Valen423: ANYWAY, the originals are still in Kirkwall but Jeffrey said he could send me scans if I was interested. Nice guy, actually.

Sora.t.: Who thinks you’re a shem.

Valen423: Do you want to see them when they arrive or not? Come over.

 

You are now leaving Arhlathchat

18:17:43 GMT

 

*

“Tethras wasn’t half bad.”

“I think I’m in danger of getting addicted to ‘Hard in Hightown’, I wonder if there’s any more. But nevermind that, what did you think of ‘Comrades in Arms’?"

“As a historical document, not much. It reads like a fantasy novel---intrepid band of heroes saving the world and all that. But I assume you’re talking about the elvhen protagonist?”

“Yes! Talia the Diviner whose left hand ‘burned like a star and could crack the heavens’. Left hand. You think that’s a coincidence?”

“A magical artifact, maybe?”

“Or magical talent.”

“That reminds me of something. Who was it that loves to say ‘sear the heavens’ so much? Cathellus?”

“Ugh, I hate Cathellus.”

“I don’t think many people actually like History of Magical Theory, that’s why it’s a required class.”

“Can you take the Cathellus? Please? My eyes are crossing just thinking about it.”

“This is your pet project, Valen.”

“Please?”

“I want another chapter of Adan and Ariston as payment.”

“Deal!”

 

*

“They were talking about the Veil!”

“Gods, Sora, knock before you come in!”

“Like you’ve got anything I haven’t seen before. Pay attention: all that searing and cracking the heavens is about the Veil. The whole war was about bringing down the Veil, and this Talia-Silverhand-whoever could make tears in it and manipulate Fade- stuff.”

“You’d think with a talent like that she’d be on the side of the Restorationists, that was the Wolf’s thing.”

“Maybe that’s how they met.”

“Futzing around with the Veil together? Hey, that’s my last one!”

“I’ve been reading Cathellus, I need nourishment. Why not? At least in ‘Comrades’ the mysterious Solon was kind of a nerd.”

“Now I’m picturing them both with glasses. It actually makes him sort of cute.”

“There is nothing you could possibly do to the Great Wolf to make him cute, he looks like he ate iron for breakfast. But you could make at least a decent case for the characters in ‘Comrades’ being based on actual historical figures.”

“And Tethras is pretty clear that ‘Solon’ and ‘Talia’ had a thing, so who’s to say that part isn’t accurate too? The bit about her magic hand was.”

“Except in ‘Comrades’ she’s got a real hand and in the histories she’s got the prosthetic.”

“Which means ‘Comrades’ had to have been written before the war, and that she lost her hand sometime after the last ‘Comrades' and before the war started.”

“ ‘Comrades’ was only two years pre-war, that’s not a lot of time.”

“Well, who was Silverhand hanging around with?”

“Not this again. There is no evidence that Solas lopped her hand off, you just like the idea because it makes a better story. For all we know a building may have fallen on her, or she got gangrene.”

“No way. That thing with her hand was what she was famous for, it made her dangerous. ‘Almost as powerful as the Wolf’, right? Somebody did not want her to have that advantage anymore.”

“You mean the man who supposedly loved her?”

“Well, they were enemies by the time the war started.”

“Cutting off your lover’s hand will do that.”


	4. Chapter 4

You are now entering Arlathchat

12:08:02 GMT

Sora.t.:There were a lot of Loyalists. Like, a LOT a lot. Did you know there were elvhen Loyalists too? Dalish loyalists?

Valen423: Those fringe weirdos who don't acknowledge zippers or electricity? Funny how no one likes to talk about that.

Sora.t.:It’s always the elvhen vs. everyone else, with everyone else being the Bad Guys.

Valen423: Silverhand was elvhen too, what do you think her deal was?

Sora.t.:Being a Loyalist doesn’t necessarily mean she supported the shems, maybe she just didn’t want the Veil down.

Valen423: Maybe she was right.

Sora.t.: ?? I think we’re on the wrong side of history to be making that kind of call.

Valen423: I’m just saying we’ve all read the descriptions of the days after the Rupture. Inherited psychic trauma was not a thing before that.

Sora.t.: And with the world on fire no one felt like fighting anymore. So Solas won.

Valen423: Yeah, he did.

You are now leaving Arlathchat

12:13:12 GMT

*

**You have a new message from: Sora**

“Any news from your boyfriend in Kirkwall?”

“Not my boyfriend, he’s ancient for a human.”

“Aren’t most of the guys you dream about a couple hundred years old?”

“The kings are immortal, that’s different. I may have hit a snag.”

“Snag?”

“Jeff’s getting cagey all of a sudden. I think he suspects.”

“Oh no.”

“I feel bad about lying to him anyway, he’s been really helpful.”

“If he finds out you’ll lose your only outside source.”

“I know. I just don’t like it.”

“Your conscience kicks in NOW?”

“If he asks I’m going to tell him.”

“Valen”

“VALEN PICK UP YOUR PHONE”

*

To:valenf@arlath.edu

From:inthebiz@flashmail.net

Subject: Aaron Fletcher

Dear Asshole,

The University of the Anderfels doesn’t HAVE a comparative literature department, and YOU are apparently a jumped-up little shit from Arlathan. Don’t even ask how I found you. I don’t know what your angle is and I don’t care, but Jeff’s a friend so leave him and the Tethrases out of it.

 

 

To:inthebiz@flashmail.net

From:valenf@arlath.edu

Subject: Re: Aaron Fletcher

Dear Anonymous Fucktard,

I happen to LIKE Jeff or I wouldn’t have told him the truth. I was looking for information on Silverhand so take a fucking breath before you accuse me of impugning the Tethrases’ family honor.

Sincerely,

‘Aaron Fletcher’

*

INCOMING CALL

“Hello?”

“ ‘Impugning the Tethrases’ honor’? Who says that?”

“Who is this?”

“Barrod Tethras, 32nd Viscount of Kirkwall, also known as Anonymous Fucktard.”

“Oh, gods. How did you get this number?”

“Same way I found your email address: ain’t tellin’.”

“Look, um, Your Grace, I’m sorry. I was just looking for information on Silverhand—”

“Yeah, I got that bit. So why lie?”

“Because I figured I’d get just as warm and fuzzy a reception from Jeff as I did from you if he knew.”

“Probably not wrong. Next question: why Silverhand?”

“It’s a pet project.”

“Aaaaaand…..?”

“That’s it!”

“Well, if you want to do things the hard way…”

“What—oh no. Is that you—what are you doing to my computer!”

“Oh, just taking a look around. Your security sucks, by the way.”

“The whole campus system is warded, you aren’t supposed to be able to get in here.”

“That’s the problem with elves, you’re always thinking with your magic.”

“Please, my life is on this computer. Papers, letters, everything!”

“I’m not doing anything drastic—yet. Let’s see…boring, boring, boring, oooh porn!”

“Stop, please stop.”

“Ah, here we are, ‘Silverhand’. You probably shouldn’t make these files so easy to find, I mean, anyone could get in here.”

“Like you?”

“Be grateful I didn’t sic my security on you, they’d just have fried your motherboard…Is this a novel?”

“I don’t know, maybe? It’s just something I’m working on privately.”

“You’re writing about Silverhand? Why? I thought she was persona non grata with you…guys.”

“Just say ‘knife-ears’ and have done with it.”

“You said it, not me.”

“Because there’s huge holes in the histories they teach us and it bugs me. I thought Kirkwall might have more than we do.”

“So this is all in defense of the truth? Planning to rattle the elven academics with a version of history in which you aren’t the good guys?”

“No. I mean, yes, I want to know, but I can’t publish this stuff even if I finished it. I’d be permanently blacklisted from academia.”

“So, secret novel?”

“Yes, so secret novel. If it’s a novel. If it works out.”

“Huh.”

“Well, what happens now?”

“I think…I take a little copy of what you have here so far—”

“Oh gods.”

“—and get back to you when I’ve decided.”

“I’ll apologize to Jeff, I’ll destroy the manuscript, just please don’t show that to anyone.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

CALL ENDED


	5. Chapter 5

“Open the door, Valen, this isn’t funny. You can’t just vanish and not answer me like that. You know I’ll stand out here and just keep shouting—”

“Okay, okay, gods, Sora.”

“What’s going on?”

“There may be a problem.”

“With what?”

“With the Silverhand project.”

“What happened? Did you tell what’s-his-name—”

“Jeff, and yes, I told him, but that’s not it.”

“Valen, are you nuts?”

“Shut up a minute, that’s not the problem!”

“…okay, what’s the problem?”

“Did you know there’s still a Viscount of Kirkwall? A TETHRAS Viscount of Kirkwall?”

“No.”

“Well, he hacked my computer.”

“Holy—”

“And he got the first draft of the Silverhand thing.”

“He hacked your computer? How?”

“Mechanical hacking, not magical.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“What can I do, call the police? He’s reading it now.”

“What is he going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, shit.”

“I need a drink. I need so many drinks.”

“Don’t move, I’ve got an emergency stash in my room. I’ll be right back.”

*

“Well, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Is that a rhetr…rheto…fuck, is that even a question?”

“So someone has a copy of some writing which resembles certain historical events. He can’t prove it’s yours, and if he did he’d have to admit to hacking you to get it. That would be embarrassing for him, right? Viscounts aren’t supposed to hack things.”

“Not enough. You know what people call hacking things? ‘Gathering intelligence’. You know what they call people re-writing history? ‘Dead’. In the water. Gods, oh gods, I just put in an application for a loan, what if this gets back to the president of the university?”

“Don’t panic, okay? We don’t know what he’s going to do.”

“Don’t tell me not to panic, I am entitled to panic.”

“Okay, panic into this. Squeeze. Feel better?”

“…maybe.”

“That is my extra-comfy pillow. I do not let anyone touch my extra-comfy pillow but I am letting you mangle it because you are my friend.”

“ ‘ank you.”

“So, worst case scenario: he splashes it all over the internet exposing you to ridicule and ruining any chance you had for an academic career. You could…change your name and become a truck driver or something.”

“Oh, great.”

“Or a go-go boy? I’d come see you dance every night and stuff money in your g-string.”

“My other nightmare come to life, thank you so much.”

“We could move to Antiva.”

“We?”

“Like I’m going to leave you here to swing? No, we’ll move to Antiva and do…something. Learn to appreciate leather and corrupt politicians.”

“Maybe the Crows are hiring. I look good in black. I could learn to kill people.”

“How hard can it be?…What’s that look?”

“I need to sleep. Or be sick.”

“Be sick first. You know where the bathroom is. I’ll clean up.”

*

INCOMING CALL

“Hello, hello, Aaron Fletcher.”

“Hi.”

“You sound terrible.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, after careful consideration I have come to several conclusions. One: your taste in reading materials is not completely execrable even if your writing needs some work…What, no witty comeback?”

“No.”

“How hammered are you?”

“Not enough.”

“Come on! This isn’t going to be nearly as much fun if you’re drunk.”

“Sorry to disappoint you. So are you going to destroy my life or not?”

“Wow, you have some serious trust issues, anyone ever tell you that?”

“What. Do. You. Want?”

“Conclusion number two: there’s no way you’re going to be able to finish this with the materials you have right now.”

“Maybe not.”

“Which leads us to conclusion number three: you need my help.”

“What?”

“Did you think Jeff honestly gave you all the best stuff up front? I’ve got more of Varric’s writings that aren’t listed publicly in the Historical Society.”

“I’m not exactly thinking clearly right now, so…why?”

“Well, you don’t actually appear to be a douchebag, just an idiot.”

“Thanks?”

“Silverhand was considered a hero by a whole lot of people before somebody went and wrote her out of history, besides which my great-great-great-whatever uncle liked her and he appreciated a good story. And she was a Marcher. So, long story short: I’m not doing it for you.”

“I…can work with that.”

“And in return for my generosity you let me see this in thing in every stage of its evolution and I get critiquing rights.”

“Al-right?”

“Really? I thought you’d put up more of a fight than that.”

“Call me back when I’m sober and I’ll argue all you want. Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get all mushy on me.”

“No, really, thank you.”

“Hanging up now.”

CALL ENDED


	6. Chapter 6

“Oh gods. Oh gods, gods gods gods—”

“Why are you freaking out _now_?”

“Because you had your turn already! What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean? I’m going to write the thing, I kind of have to at this point.”

“You didn’t think that maybe, just maybe you could just…stop? Just let it go, say it was a bust and get back to your real life?”

“This is my real life, it doesn’t get much more real than this!”

“School, Valen. Remember school? That great big thing where you get the fancy letters at the end of your name when you graduate? Remember wanting to go on digs on the Exalted Plains? The papers you wanted to write?”

“I can’t believe you’re saying that. This is huge! This is an epic story that the entire world has completely forgotten about, how can digging up aravels on the Exalted Plains possibly be better than this?”

“Better? You’re being _blackmailed_.”

“I prefer ‘strongly encouraged’.”

“Less than forty-eight hours ago you were a nervous wreck.”

“Yes, when I thought Barrod Tethras was going to nail my nuts to the floor, but he’s not. He likes what I’m writing.”

“Varrod.”

“What?”

“Varrod, with a ‘V’. 31st Viscount of Kirkwall. What? I looked him up.”

“…I talked to a Barrod Tethras who said he was the 32nd. Give me your computer, there’s got to be something about the Tethrases somewhere…Kirkwall, Kirkwall, Kirkwall. Shit.”

“What?”

“ ‘Varrod Tethras, 31st Viscount of Kirkwall, cuts the ribbon on the new Kirkwall Institute of Technology where his _son_ , Barrod will be attending in the fall’. He lied. That little shit lied to me!”

 

To:inthebiz@flashmail.net

From:valenf@arthlath.edu

Subject: FRAUD

I just looked you up and there ISN’T a 32nd Viscount of Kirkwall yet, Varrod Tethras is still alive and kicking! And you call me a liar!

 

From:inthebiz@flashmail.net

To:valenf@arlath.edu

Subject: Re:FRAUD

I’m Viscount in potentia. Call me ‘Your Grace’ again, I kind of liked it.

 

From:valenf@arlath.edu

To:inthebiz@flashmail.net

Subject: Re: Re: FRAUD

You called me a jumped up little shit and you’re younger than I am!

 

From:inthebiz@flashmail.net

To:valenf@arthlath.edu

Subject: Re:Re:Re:FRAUD

Yeah, well unlike some races it doesn’t take us a millennia to mature. Now be a good boy and leave me alone, I’m busy. Or did you decide that you DON’T want the good stuff?

 

“This isn’t happening. This does not happen outside of bad comedies.”

“Getting pwned by a seventeen year-old?”

“I’M GONNA KILL HIM! I’M GOING TO KIRKWALL AND I’M GOING TO KICK HIS MISERABLE ASS ALL THE WAY TO TEVINTER!”

“You were saying something about ‘real life’? Just got realer.”

“Are you enjoying this? Because I have to say, Sora, it really fucking sounds like you’re enjoying this.”

“No! But, look: he’s a teenager, which means that instead of huge political connections he’s maybe got a Youtube channel and a Galaxy Quest account. He’s not nearly as scary as you thought he was. Yes, he’s got something that you want but he’s not untouchable; do you remember being his age?”

“I tried to forget.”

“Remember that feeling that you knew everything and were somehow also transparently pathetic at the same time? Plus, he’s a hacker, which means he’s probably also got rotten social skills.”

“What point are you trying to make?”

“What did you want more than anything when you were seventeen?”

“Sex.”

“Besides sex.”

“More sex.”

“ _To be taken seriously._ Assuming he’s not actually a criminal mastermind, he’s most likely an isolated teenager who only knows how to jump into things head-first and try to take over.”

“When did you become a psych major?”

“I took a few classes, shut up. This is how he gets people’s attention and makes it stick.”

“So…this is his version of saying ‘hi’?”

“Could be.”

“Okay, I want to kill him marginally less than I want to smack him and run his shorts up a flagpole.”

“Not a bad start. Okay, what is he sending you and when?”

*

“He says she was a Marcher? I thought she was Dalish.”

“Both, as it turns out.”

“Okay, whatever. So, the Dalish were still considered weird back in the day, right?”

“I think so, but not as weird as they are now.“

“Have you still got your books on the Dalish? I returned mine to the store already.”

“Maybe? If I’ve got them, they’re in a pile here somewhere…”

“How do you find anything in here?”

“It’s all in piles, and if it’s in a pile I can find it.”

*

“The Dalish hate Solas, don’t they?”

“Well, they use his name as a curse, if that tells you anything.”

“There was something about trying to reach out to them before the war and I think they practically spat in his face. What did they call him? The Great Betrayer? Said he was going to bring doom upon all the world?”

“He kind of did.”

“I think according to Dalish belief the world actually ended the day the Veil was ruptured, and the entire earth was swallowed by a giant wolf.”

“A wolf? Not the Wolf?”

“It’s not clear, they seem to use it interchangeably. Supposedly we’re all living in his stomach but no one realizes it except the Dalish. They’re supposed to keep true to the old ways or something so that they’ll inherit the next world when it’s created.”

“Hold on…’A Season with the Dalish’, ‘In Our Ancestor’s Footsteps’, and aha! ‘Legends of the Dalish’!”

“Give me one, let’s see if they have anything on Silverhand.”

*

“Well, for starters they don’t call her Silverhand. Or at least they didn’t when this book was written, it’s pretty dated.”

“Try getting near any of them with a tape recorder.”

“They call her…I don’t think I can pronounce that. No, I’m not even going to try. But the translation is something like ‘Lost Sister Redeemed’, and she’s kind of a combination of a martyr and an object lesson at the same time.”

“Go on.”

“Ummm…oh, here: ‘She was seduced by the betrayer with sweet words and promises of power, and not knowing him she accomplished many great deeds in his name. When he revealed himself, however, she rejected him’ and then the story is different depending on the clan you talk to. In one version the wolf that swallows the world bit her hand off while she was trying to chain it, and in another she cut her hand off herself saying she ‘reviled the hand that accepted false gifts’. Either way that’s kind of her turn-around point for them, and after that she’s a ‘valiant warrior’ who fought to the last.”

“But in either case they link the loss of the hand to the wolf. Or the Wolf.”

“Definitely. So, she’s still a hero to them.”

“Sort of.”

“Well, that’s someone.”


	7. Chapter 7

“I like this.”

“Give it back, it’s not finished.”

“I’m serious, I really like it.”

“I can’t believe I'm drawing them now. I can’t believe you dragged me into this.”

“Wow. You’re good. I mean really good. Why aren’t you in the Fine Arts program?”

“Why aren’t you in the Creative Writing program?”

“Ouch. You made Solas look…young. How did you do that?”

“It’s just a sketch.”

“I don’t think there’s a single portrait of him smiling, anywhere. So that’s what he looks like.”

“Maybe. Do you think she even looked like that?”

“Assuming that Solas was the one to commission the statues in the Hall of Remembrance like the historians say, yes. Anyone who demands secret courting-knots on Silverhand’s clothing had to picky about details.”

“I like that she wasn’t a classic beauty on top of being a hero. She actually looks like a real person.”

“She looked like someone who’d tell the Great Wolf to shove it and then raise an army against him.”

“He had good taste.”

“True. The Wolf Queens were awesome even if they weren’t love-matches. Do you think they knew about Silverhand?”

“Probably. They were all extremely practical ladies, I think they knew what they were getting into when they married Solas. Besides it’s not like they didn’t have their own agendas.”

“Do you think any of them actually slept while they were rebuilding the country?”

“Maybe they took shifts.”

*

Now entering Arlathchat

16:30:25 GMT

Sora.t.: Where’s the Adan/Ariston smut you promised me?

Valen423: I meant to porn but I ended up angsting instead.

Sora.t.: You angsted? What happened?

Valen423: I think it’s the Silverhand thing, I’ve been trying to figure out how on earth she and Solas ended up together and it doesn’t make any sense. She was a backwater, uneducated, super-conservative who probably didn’t know a Fade-rift from a hole in the ground. Not to mention a couple centuries younger than him and mortal.

Sora.t.: Mind the age gap.

Valen423: Very funny.

Sora.t.: Who says it was easy? Maybe it drove him crazy, too. He was playing a thousand year-old chess game and all of a sudden she shows up and he’s playing Go Fish instead.

Valen423: Is that some comment on her intelligence?

Sora.t.: I’m saying the rules changed. All the plans he made suddenly weren’t going to work, on top of which he was getting emotionally involved which I’m sure he didn’t plan on. Getting involved with her was probably the least rational thing he’d done in centuries.

You are now leaving Arlatchat

16:37:42 GMT

*

“Assuming that Varric was mostly telling the truth about the Inquisition—”

“That’s still the dumbest name I’ve ever heard.”

“—the thing in her hand couldn’t have been hers originally. It has to have been some sort of artifact rather than a talent because they talk about her using it like a tool, as something separate from her rather than something innate. And she can’t have had it long when ‘Comrades’ started, she seems to be as confused by it as everyone else.”

“So, hypothetically, how does one end up with a magical artifact implanted in one’s arm?”

“Your stereotypical crazed mage might try to mess with something they couldn’t handle, but they’d be obsessed with making it work and she wasn’t. I don’t get the impression she did it to herself.”

“So, some other kind of accident. The kind of accident Solas would’ve loved to have, I bet.”

“She had the best toys.”

“And he just happened to be the closest thing to an expert there was at the time. Oh. _Oh._ What if he was the one who created it?”

“He would’ve had to stick around to see how it worked. How was she able to use it if he’d created it for himself?”

“Got me. She probably wasn’t supposed to be able to, she wasn’t even a mage.”

“It must have blown his mind, that’s like someone illiterate being able to do rocket science in the pitch black. That’s seriously high-level magic, especially pre-Restoration, maybe there wasn’t supposed to be anyone but him who could.”

“Except her.”

“One in a million.”

“So it was academic curiosity on his part?”

“Maybe to start with, but I don’t think that’s all of it. It would have been much less work to present himself as a mentor or a friend rather than start courting her formally, and it was formal if the courting-knots were real. He went old school.”

“So, the implication is he would have married her if he could have. That’s…nuts. He’d been plotting to take the Veil down for a thousand years and he gets sidetracked enough to consider marriage?”

“Or as close to it as he could honorably get.”

“He had to have known it couldn’t possibly work between them.”

“Yeah, and he did it anyway.”

“Wow. Does that make him a romantic or just a jerk?”

"Probably some of both, no one's ever that simple."

"Now who's been taking psych classes?"

*

“How did Silverhand die?”

“I dunno, everyone just says ‘in the last battle’.”

“The last battle was when the Wolf ruptured the Veil, right?”

“So maybe she got caught up in the explosion. She could be in one of those mass graves with the other Loyalists.”

“Supposedly Solas gave orders to capture the generals alive if at all possible, and Silverhand was hot shit. If she’d died on the battlefield there’d be a marker or something.”

“So where’s the grave?”

 

To:inthebiz@flashmail.net

From:valenf@arlathan.edu

Subject: Gravesite?

This is going to sound weird, but how are you at finding where people are buried?


	8. Chapter 8

INCOMING CALL FROM: YOUR GRACE

“Gravesite? Whose?”

“Silverhand’s.”

“What, you haven’t got her? I thought being all pointy-eared she’d be stashed away somewhere in Arlathan.”

“She’s not, though, and there aren’t any markers saying where she died either. She’s not exactly a hero here, so I thought maybe she was buried back in the Marches instead.”

“Not that I know of. I can look but there isn’t exactly an up-to-date registry of dead people from a thousand years ago on the internet.”

“A monument, a statue, anything would help.”

“You know who would be really good at this? Jeff.”

“Jeff’s not talking to me.”

“So apologize!”

“I did apologize.”

“Apologize some more. You just applied for a student loan, you must know how to grovel.”

“How---Barrod, stay out of my computer. Personal. Space.”

“Don’t try to distract me. He’s an actual historian and he probably knows people who know people who have stuff.”

“He’s not going to talk to me.”

“If you tell him a little story about a certain Silverhand project he just might.”

“You didn’t?”

“Of course not, I said I wanted the documents for my own edification.”

“Did you use the word ‘edification’?”

“Yes.”

“Then there is no way he believed you. Great, Barrod, just tell everyone what I’m doing!”

“You may think elves inherited the earth but that doesn’t actually make you the center of the solar system.”

“The sun is the center of the solar system.”

“MY POINT BEING that this all happened about a thousand years ago and outside of Tight-ass Land people probably don’t care nearly as much as you think. Talk to Jeff and if that doesn’t pan out we’ll think of something else.”

“You know you aren’t actually my boss, right?”

“I prefer Evil Overlord, anyway.”

CALL ENDED

*

To:jambrose@khs.org  
From:valenf@arlathan.edu  
Subject: Apologies and an explanation

~~Dear Jeff~~

Dear Dr. Ambrose,  
I’m sure that I am the last person you want to hear from right now but ~~Barrod won’t get off my back until I try~~ I’m hoping you will at least finish this letter before you throw it out. The name I used when I contacted you was false but my interest in the subject is genuine. I was afraid that if you saw I was writing from Arlathan you might not have been willing to speak to me at all, and the resources at the University are so biased that on my own I might never get a good picture of what happened during the war. I know Barrod Tethras talks to you so you may have already guessed that I’m trying to research a Loyalist general named Silverhand. She seems to have been almost entirely written out of the history books and the more I learn of her, the more it seems that she was someone incredible who’s been unfairly swept under the carpet. ~~I’m just trying to write a gods-damned story and this has all gotten completely out of hand.~~

SAVE DRAFT? Y/N?

*

“That was gutsy.”

“That was desperate. Barrod was right, we should probably be dealing with actual experts on the subject.”

“So what happens now?”

“We wait.”

“This is way too familiar. You supply the booze this time.”

*

“Well?”

“Ouch.”

“What?”

“I just got my ass handed to me verbally, but he says he’ll consider helping me in exchange for access to information in some of the University’s archives.”

“We can do that. Whatever he wants---short of something like the original copy of Queen Verena’s diary. No stealing, Valen, I don’t care how much you want this story.”

“No! No stealing, of course not. I’m just going to send him scans of whatever. It’s an exchange of information, professionals do stuff like this all the time.”

“You rebound really quickly, you know that?”

“I am a spry and springy thing. I am dauntless. Completely without daunts of any kind.”

“And I’m completely without sleep of any kind. Gods, can I crash here? I’ve got class in four hours and I’m going to be dead if I don’t get unconscious for at least a little while.”

“Yeah, sure.”

*

INCOMING CALL FROM: YOUR GRACE

“Hey, got something for you!”

“You found a grave?”

“No, something better. Ever heard of Wycome?”

“No, why?”

“Ancestors forbid you actually know anything beyond your own borders. It’s a city in the Marches.”

“And this is important why?”

“Three years before the war a Dalish clan took refuge there and ended up staying.”

“Dalish? Are we talking about the same people? Wagons, tattoos, think cities are a blight on the landscape?”

“So this group were more progressive whackjobs than average. Anyway, one of their elders ended up on the City Council and things were pretty sweet for a while, until some noble had them all blown up at a Council meeting.”

“I’m still waiting.”

“This clan claimed Silverhand was one of theirs.”

“DID YOU GET A NAME? TELL ME YOU GOT A NAME!”

“Lavellan. Who’s awesome?”

“Do we have to do this every time?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. You are.”

“And who rules?”

“Marchers rule.”

“Damn straight.”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of Lavellan, but if they were Loyalists maybe they were declared harellan after the war. I mean, settling in a shem city alone would have been a mark against them.”

“Hey!”

“No offense. Did anything of the clan survive?”

“Well, it’s not a name you hear on the street everyday.”

“That’s okay, we’ve got a name, an actual name. If any of the Loyalist records survived we know how to look for her, now…”

“You still there?”

“Yeah. It just kind of hit me that this is real, now. She had a name and a clan, she might even have relatives who survived. She’s not just a footnote or a myth anymore.”

“You sound like you’re about to wax philosophic which is my cue to leave. Get back to me if you find anything.”

 

CALL ENDED


	9. Chapter 9

“There’s no grave anywhere. Not on the battlefield, not in Tarasyl'an Te'las---”

“Quit showing off and just call it Skyhold, already.”

“Fine, not in _Skyhold_ or anywhere anyone can say for sure. There’s no record of it in any of the documents we have here and neither Jeff nor Barrod could find anything.”

“If they couldn’t find her body the statue in the Hall of Remembrance would make sense.”

“So what happened to her? All the Loyalist generals were accounted for but her, dead or otherwise.”

“Maybe she wasn’t identified properly and ended up in one of those mass graves with the other Loyalists.”

“The enchanted mechanical arm wouldn’t be a dead giveaway?”

“Or someone did it on purpose to be spiteful. A sort of ‘you’re not even worth remembering’ jab at the end.”

“...that’s terrible.”

“People have done it.”

“That’s really terrible.”

“V, I know you love this story but you do remember how the actual history went, right? The Restorationists win, the Veil comes down, huge swaths of the population gets killed, the Loyalists surrender--”

“Yes, I know all that--”

“Silverhand is never seen or heard from again and Solas goes down in history as the most miserable king ever. They don’t get a happy ending.”

“Just---just think about this: he loses her in a _field of corpses_ , and he can’t even bury her properly. My gods, that’s...I don’t know if I can do that.”

“You’re not doing anything, it all happened a thousand years ago.”

“That’s not right.”

“But it’s accurate. Do you remember when you started this whole thing you were looking for real, solid evidence? Nevermind that you abandoned any kind of realistic thinking weeks ago, I thought we were at least pretending to care about the truth and not just writing fiction! Valen? Valen, come on, don’t---”

*

**You have a new message from: Sora**

“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings but you know I’m right. This isn’t research anymore.”

“Nope. Like you said, ‘pure fiction’.”

“I just don’t get where all this is coming from. Why are you so worked up about all this?”

“I dunno, but it matters to me.”

“There’s no way of proving any of this is true.”

“I know.”

“No one will take you seriously.”

“I know.”

“Come back?”

*

“Why are you being so negative about this? I know you think you take your job as the Voice of Reason seriously but you’ve been even more pessimistic than usual throughout this whole thing.”

“Because it’s eating your life and I am worried, okay? You’re lying to people, getting blackmailed, writing stuff that’ll get you discredited and it’s just...fiction.”

“...wow, tell me how you really feel.”

“I’m sorry. I like fiction, I like your fiction, I just...we’re crossing a line here. In the beginning it was just you getting excited over a possibility, I didn’t think it would go this far.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s not what I meant. Shit. We’re supposed to be looking for the truth, not inventing what we wish had happened.”

“How do we know it didn’t?”

“Because things like this don’t happen!”

“They do happen! Solas did lock the gods away, he did burn the world down, he most likely was in love with Silverhand, it all actually happened! How is what I’m coming up with any more ridiculous than the truth?”

“Ugh.”

“Don’t be a sore loser.”

“Don’t make me hit you. So what’s your theory about the incredible vanishing Silverhand?”

“I don’t have one yet. It’s just...it doesn’t make sense. Plus it’s a lousy ending.”

“But you’d get to write some super-angst. Solas roaming the battlefield, having achieved everything he wanted except for the one thing he never planned on?”

“Okay, okay, I see it, it just bugs me. If she died there why hasn’t anybody seen her ghost? There were supposed to have been thousands of spirits around the battlefield after the Rupture, it took years and a dozen necromancers to convince them to leave.”

“Nobody’s seen Solas in the Fade since he entered uthenera, either, and the other Wolf Kings have tended to hang around dispensing advice whether it’s asked for or not. Although I think half the sightings of Queen Verena are plain old anxiety dreams.”

“Understandably! They called her ‘The Just' because they couldn’t actually call her ‘Queen Verena the Utterly Terrifying’. I had a dream about her handing me back a failed paper and telling me she was very disappointed, once. Probably not actually her. So both of them just vanished.”

“Their timing sucks. If they’d managed to disappear before everything went boom you could have made a case for them eloping somewhere.”

“I’m sure they both thought of it, but there’s no way after all that time that Solas was going to screw his plans in the name of love. Wait...they both vanished? Not at the same time, but…”

“But?”

“But what if she survived? What if there was no body to find because she wasn’t there?”

“I don’t see her deserting in the name of love, either.”

“No, you’re right. Argh. Okay, let’s think about the final battle. We know where Solas was, where was everyone else?”

“Well, from what I remember, the Loyalists were advancing and the Restorationists were stalling for time so Solas could do his thing with the Veil.”

“We need specifics. We need the generals.”

“Theirs or ours?”

“Both.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Okay, that was uncomfortable.”

“So the guy liked you, what’s wrong with that?”

“He was just a little too enthused about ancient battles for my comfort.”

“Maybe he’s a historical re-enactor.”

“No! Nobody goes that far back, do they?”

“Eh, probably not. Who would you find to play the Loyalists, anyway? But the important thing is that we have materials. We might’ve gotten more if you’d flirted with the guy a little.”

“V, flirting is your department; you are the ones with the wiles, I am the one with the attitude.”

“I don’t think I was his type. Right, we’re going to need maps and pins and...stuff.”

“You mean like the nice diagrams they have in the book?”

“This is why I keep you around. Now who was commanding what?”

*

“None of these people are even remotely familiar.”

“They were the evil oppressors, somehow I’m not surprised they don’t get equal mention in grade-school education. Got any names?”

“A few. There was...an Arl Eamon who died on the battlefield, Lavellan---can you believe we could have read this before and not known who she was?--- a Grey Warden Commander and a Grand Enchanter Fiona who were taken prisoner, a Knight-Commander of the Templars who died trying a suicide run, and a Commander Cullen who was the one to offer formal surrender in the name of the king.”

“So Cullen was one of the last ones standing. Let’s start with him.”

*

_‘...The world is burning. The explosion that our mages tell us ruptured the Veil has devastated our forces and leaves us open to attack from all manner of demons and other unnatural things, and though the Templars fight valiantly to keep us safe their strength is not infinite. Our resources will only hold so much longer and all the generals except myself have fallen or been taken prisoner. Of General Lavellan, who had undertaken pursuit of the rebel leader Solas, there is no word, and we must assume that she will not return. I have advised King Alistair to sue for peace while there are still enough of us left to rebuild. We have failed, Maker help us all.’_

“Got any alcohol left? I think I need some.”

“Me first.”

“Don’t take all of it.”

“Gah. I needed that.”

“Gimme.”

“I feel sick.”

“Yeah. Go, Restorationists. Agh. Okay, focus. Lavellan.”

“Right, Lavellan. It sounds like she went after Solas personally, which potentially puts her in the blast zone when the Veil ruptured. He had protection but there was no way she could have, the Loyalists didn’t have anything that advanced.”

“He killed her. He didn’t just start a war that killed her, he _killed_ her.”

“Oh, gods…”

“I’m sorry, V.”

“...then where was the body?”

“What?”

“If she was right there with him he’d have found her, afterwards. Something of her.”

“I assumed the explosion just kind of...vaporized her. Fade-stuff is pretty unpredictable, it can do almost anything, and that much of it---”

“No, that’s not it. It’s too neat.”

“But Solas must have thought she was dead too or he wouldn’t have been so miserable. If he’d known she was alive somewhere he could have run off as soon as he thought the empire was secure.”

“Why did he abdicate, anyway? I mean, obviously he was pretty old by then but he was practically immortal, he could have lived as long as he wanted.”

“We need to find out why.”

*

“At least this we have access to on our own.”

“The University’s good for that: all Wolf Kings, all the time. Ummm…lemme see...I’m finding a lot of the same fragments of the speech quoted over and over. He abdicated in the year Restoration 312. Blah blah blah glory, blah blah blah empire, blah blah blah duty, blah blah my great-grandson will do a good job...Nothing. He really plays it close to the vest. If there’s something going here on you wouldn’t know it.”

“So if he’s not talking, who are we left with?”

“The Queens, advisors, maybe his kids.”

“Tracking down individual accounts is going to be godsawful.”

“What about biographies? I mean, he’s THE King, someone has to have written about him.”

“And they might have already assembled the pieces for us. Time-saver! Sora, I love you!”

“Let’s see what the library has to start with.”

*

“Did you have to take out all of them at once? I thought the librarian was going to kill you.”

“We’re going to need to compare what different authors said if we’re going to read between the lines. I’m not expecting to find anything directly related to Silverhand---Lavellan---in here, but maybe we can get a better idea of what kind of man Solas was.”

“Someone somewhere is trying to write an essay on the Great Wolf and cursing your name.”

“They can get in line. Where do we start? The oldest, the most reputable, or eeny-meenie-miny-mo?”

*  
“Did you know that he was the original author of the Tolerance Laws?”

“The ‘Thou shalt not fuck with the Dalish forever and ever, amen’ thing? I probably knew that at some point.”

“He had to have done it for her. For Lavellan.”

“That would make sense. It’d also make him look like a gracious winner which couldn’t hurt.”

“Everything’s politics with you.”

“And everything’s a love story with you. I just don’t get the impression that aside from Lavellan he did things without thinking about them a LOT first. So far that’s one thing all the biographies have in common.”

“How many different ways can you say ‘long-term planner’?”

“Boy did Lavellan throw a wrench in things. It would have made more sense if he’d hated her.”

“ ‘You utterly infuriate me and I love you’. Ooh, that’s going to be fun to write. Find anything?”

“Nothing new about Solas’ abdication yet, but the more I think about it the more I think you may have been right about how Lavellan lost the arm. In ‘Comrades’ Varric mentions that it hurt her, and throughout the rest of the books Solas just gets more and more worried about what it’s doing.”

“The biographies aren’t much help in identifying the thing. They just say that he used something of immense power to rupture the Veil, that it might have been of his own making, and that it was never seen again after the battle.”

“Assuming he was its creator and it was only supposed to work for him, it couldn’t have been good for her to have it. The fact that she kept it from tearing her apart in the first place was pretty impressive.”

“Instant crush.”

“Maybe. There was no getting it out of her, though. What’s-his-face, the big bad villain with the Red Lyrium infestation, tried a couple of times and it never worked. Solas had to have tried and failed, too. How come nobody thought of removing the arm until after ‘Comrades’ was over?”

“I don’t get the impression from the biographies Solas would have suggested lopping off an arm just because it was the most expedient way to do things.” 

“So burning the world down was fine but he didn’t like unnecessary cruelty? Well, I guess you’ve got to have standards.”

“I’m making the argument that he had morals, not that I agree with them. Look, all throughout ‘Comrades’ he’s in the middle of things helping refugees and keeping the Inquisition alive, but he didn’t need to do any of that if all he wanted was the thing in Lavellan’s arm. He could have just amputated it and run but he didn’t. Some of that was probably curiosity on his part but I get the impression he would have rather found another way of using the thing to his advantage that didn’t involve grievous bodily injury. He says it himself in ‘Comrades’: ‘violence is a means to an end and not something to be celebrated.’ He did what he thought was necessary but he avoided hurting people when he could.”

“So cutting off Lavellan’s arm became unavoidable.”

“If it was really as bad for her as we think, then yes. He might’ve very well have saved her life by doing that.”

“As well as getting his toy back.”

“Yes, he got his toy back, but look: he was rebuilding the elvhen empire and he held off from just grabbing the thing and running because it might hurt someone. Think about that.”

“He put the whole empire on hold for her.”


	11. Chapter 11

“My head is spinning. Are my eyes even open anymore?”

“Yes, but I don’t think you’re actually seeing anything.”

“Oh, gods, I think I have text printed on the back of my eyelids now. My eyes are closed but I’m still seeing letters.”

“Your eyes are open and you’re staring at a book.”

“...well, that would do it.”

“Was that a giggle? Sora, are you giggling?”

“No, I’m just...a little punchy. A tad. Woooh, I cannot actually think anymore. I can’t. It doesn’t work. Brain gone!”

“Did we finally reach your research threshhold?”

“No! No, that is not true. There are still a dozen biographies left and I have time---”

“O-kay, naptime for you.”

“I’m fine! I just need to focus. And coffee. I need to coffee.”

“Sora, give me the book.”

“No.”

“Give me the book and take a nap, you’ll feel better.”

“Slander. I am invincible.”

“Of course you are, now lie down before you hurt yourself.”

“Read to me?”

“Are you joking?”

“Please, anything, my brain won’t shut off and I keep seeing those same stupid quotes over and over again.”

“Okay, okay. Um...here, how about some Dalish magical traditions?”

“I don’t care, just read.”

“If this doesn’t put you to sleep nothing will. ‘The Dalish magical tradition has changed very little over the centuries despite the sundering of the Veil, which allows the outsider an unparalleled glimpse into practices and customs hundreds of years old. Even before the destruction of the Veil when magical talent was scarce, the Dalish maintained strict limits on the number of magic-users per clan, either to avoid drawing the attention of the Chantry’s Templars who were sworn to hunt down apostate mages, or alternatively to protect the clan from the dangers of magic itself.’”

“‘s stupid, you can’t control who has magic.”

“Don’t argue, you’re supposed to be sleeping. ‘Traditionally the clan’s Keeper was both spiritual advisor and magical instructor to the next generation. It was his duty to train an apprentice, known as a First, in what he would need to know to lead the clan after the former Keeper died.’ “

“Two magic-users per clan. Just two. Dumb.”

“ ‘On very rare occasions Keepers had been known to train a second apprentice, but it was far more common for children with magical talent to be traded to clans who had no mages or exiled if no place could be found for them.’ “

“Exiled for having more magic than they needed. No wonder nobody liked them.”

“Sora, you’re still talking.”

“It pisses me off! How many of their own kids did they end up throwing away?”

“Probably as few as they could manage, the Dalish are crazy protective of their kids. Besides there had to be at least a few who…”

“What?”

“Who hid. Pre-Restoration you couldn’t tell if someone was a mage unless you saw them doing magic, the mage-mark didn’t become recognizable for about a hundred years after the Veil came down. There had to be some Dalish who were actively hiding magical abilities, how many parents do you know who would exile their own kid if there was another option?”

“Closeted mages? That’s insane! You have to learn to control magical abilities or you risk blowing yourself to smithereens.”

“I can’t be the only one who’s thought of this. I need a computer.”

“What has this got to do with Lavellan?”

“Nothing, but aren’t you dying for a break from the biographies?”

*

“I’m not crazy. Look, there’s at least a dozen articles on the topic even if no one was able to prove it.”

“Of course not, the Dalish aren’t going to admit they purposefully concealed mages to a complete stranger.”

“There weren’t that many Dalish to start with, and assuming that the genetic traits that let most of the elvhen population use magic were present back then, that’s still seventy-five percent of all them even if the genes were dormant. You couldn’t possibly get rid of every extra mage or you’d end up decimating your own species.”

“Hence closeted mages. Do you think you could really hide something like that your whole life?”

“Trust me, if you’re desperate enough you can hide almost anything, especially when people don’t want to see it.”

“I’m sorry, V, I wasn’t thinking. By the way, Mom wants to know if you still like ginger-apple pie because she’s got to start baking before we come home for winter break.”

“I love your mom. She is awesome.”

“I’m pretty sure she likes you more than me.”

“Nah. Well, maybe.”

“You aren’t supposed to agree. So, hidden mages leads to...holy shit.”

“No.”

“No, right? Couldn’t be. Except…”

“LAVELLAN WAS A MAGE, SHE WAS A FUCKING CLOSETED MAGE!”

_“Hey! Keep it down in there, some of us are trying to sleep!”_

“Sorry!”

“Or she could have even just been a carrier, but if it got activated---”

“Say by the insertion of a magical artifact into her arm---”

“Then the artifact wasn’t the power-source, it was the trigger. The rest was all her.”

“Which is how she able to control it and use it in the first place!”

“This...is all making a terrifying amount of sense. Oh, my gods, V, I think you did it. I think you did.”

“I think my head’s exploded. If she had the ability and the juice to pull off what she supposedly did, that’d make her the most powerful Rift Mage since....well, Solas. No wonder she got under his skin.”

“So you think he knew? Most people couldn’t actually recognize magic-users on sight if they weren’t casting, the mage-mark didn’t become something you could see until decades after the Veil came down.”

“He knew and he was keeping her secret because she asked him to. Because if word got out that she was a mage---”

“She could never go home.”

“He would have wanted her to be proud of her abilities, train them---”

“And she would have had to deny they even existed if she ever wanted to see her family again.”

“That would have driven him nuts; the first thing he did after he won the war was to mandate magical education for everyone whether they were a mage or not to ensure that anyone….oh.”

“To ensure that anyone who didn’t know they were a mage or had suddenly become one since the Veil came down would be able to control themselves. That must have been for Lavellan, too.”

“At least in part. He never had a chance of not getting emotionally involved, did he? She was _perfect_.”

“And she ruined everything.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. Let me start by saying that I blame you guys reading this for the utterly cracktastic turn this story has taken. I am serious, I would never have tried this ending if I hadn't gotten such an enthusiastic response. So all this is your fault. And thank you.
> 
> This is the last official chapter but I am planning a prologue.  
> ______________________________________________________________________________________

“Ow. Do epiphany hangovers exist? If not I just invented them.”

“Nrgh.”

“Sora?”

“I think I’m having an aneurysm. Or an idea, I’m not sure which.”

“What makes you think it’s an aneurysm?”

“Because this sort of idea should not be coming out of my brain.”

“Take it slow, use your words.”

“She was a mage.”

“Yes, potentially.”

“A Rift mage.”

“Maybe.”

“Who flat-out disappeared when the Veil came down and the Fade was accessible anywhere. Valen, _what if she went into the Fade?”_

“You can’t survive physically in the Fade.”

“She did before.”

“When she had the thing in her arm, but she didn’t have it anymore.”

“But if the artifact was just the trigger, it had nothing to do with whether or not she COULD go into the Fade, just that she DID.”

“The chances of that happening are astronomical. I mean, besides from being hit with all that high-level magic, she could have been thrown anywhere in the Fade and it’s not a user-friendly place.”

“With anyone else I’d agree with you, but look at her track record." 

“She didn’t have nearly the training you would need to get through something like that, which is why Solas didn’t look for her!”

“Maybe she found him.”

“What?”

“Maybe that’s why he abdicated when he did, she found him and he entered uthenera to be with her in the Fade.”

“You’re saying she spent the next three hundred years finding her way back through the Fade? I FUCKING LOVE THIS WOMAN!”

_“Hey! Cut it out in there or I’m calling the RA.”_

“I know that’s you, Tamlen, and there’s not a single person on this entire floor who hasn’t heard you blasting that stupid Qunari porn at three in the morning, so if anyone is going to shut up it’s going to be YOU!”

“Have I ever mentioned how glad I am that you’re on my side?”

“Yeah, probably. Well, I guess the next question is whether or not Lavellan ever forgives him. What, don’t look at me like that. He experimented on her, lied to her, cut her arm off and blew her up, she has every right to be angry. Now that I think about it, it seems incredible that she’d come back at all.”

“Are you retracting your earlier statement?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. Just thinking aloud.”

“You have a point. She lost everything because of him, her clan, her friends, civilization as she knew it, and then she ends up getting tossed into the Fade to fend for herself.”

“And probably ends up becoming a full-fledged Rift mage just to survive. Do me a favor?”

“What?”

“In your version when Lavellan finds Solas, make him suffer. If she doesn’t hit him at least a little bit I’m going to lose all respect for her.”

“And of course the only plausible response to being kicked in the head by your ex is to yell ‘My darling’ and run off into the Fade with her.”

“Under the circumstances, yes. And then he can spend the next couple of hundred years apologizing.”

“With his tongue?”

“Ha! Like he’s earned the privilege.”

“This is why you don’t date, isn’t it? Your standards---ow! Ow! Ow, okay, I take it back! This is abuse.”

“You love it. Gods...you got your happy ending after all.”

“As happy endings go it sucks.”

“How else could it have ended with them together? The deck could not have been more stacked against them. He had an empire to build and she was trying to maintain the status quo, he was a mage and she was in denial, he needed the thing in her arm but she was the one who had it. Seriously, you would literally have to take them both out of their own histories for any kind of relationship to work.”

“Which is what they ended up doing.”

“So...does this mean they won?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I can tell.”

*

INCOMING CALL FROM: YOUR GRACE

“Hello?”

“Valen, that thing you sent me…”

“Yes?”

“This is...utterly...the most cracktastic thing I have ever read. No, I cannot even adequately describe the levels of crack this has ascended to.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I think people are going to love it.”

“What people?”

“Your audience! The unwashed masses!”

“I can’t publish this! Do the words ‘professional suicide’ and ‘academic censure’ not ring any bells?”

“YOU are not going to publish it, I am going to publish it through one of the smaller presses under a pseudonym. No paper trail to you, no backlash from the University, the Inquisition rides again, everyone wins.”

“You’re serious.”

“I am dead serious, there’s a market for fiction like this. We could actually make money.”

“I swear to the gods, Barrod, if you are fucking with me---”

“I never joke about business opportunities. Of course as your representative I will be taking a small cut of the profits if we make any…”

“Of course you will. I need to tell Sora.”

“Bring her to the negotiations and she can protect you from the big bad businessman.”

“Really?”

“Why not?”

*

You are now entering Snapchat  
21:30:05 GMT

Makingmagic45: I can’t believe I agreed to this.

Realitybytes: Relax, what do you think I’m going to do?

Makingmagic45: I’m not worried about Sora, I’m worried about you. She is going to eat you alive.

Realitybytes: Aww, I’m touched. And kind of turned on, she sounds hot.

Silvergirl91 has entered the room.

Makingmagic45: Okay, we’re all here. Good. Barrod, meet Sora: best friend, muse of common sense, general co-conspirator. Sora, meet Barrod: hacker, immature brat, bane of my existence.

Realitybytes: Call me “Your Grace”, Valen does.

Silvergirl91: In your dreams.

Realitybytes: Oooh, feisty! 

Makingmagic45: Nice to see you two getting along so well.

Silvergirl91: You play Galaxy Quest, don’t you?

Realitybytes: Maybe, why?

Silvergirl91: And you always play a Marauder.

Realitybytes: Have we met?

Silvergirl91: Just confirming a theory.

Realitybytes: What theory? 

Makingmagic45: Sora…

Realitybytes: No, really, what theory? What have you got against Marauders? Are you one of those Psilon supremacists? Advanced tech does not make you better than everyone else if you can’t hold onto it.

Makingmagic45: Guys, enough. Focus. 

Realitybytes: This isn’t over. Fine, fine. I officially call the “OMG Totally Secret Novel” meeting to order. You need to come up with a title for this thing, you know that?

Makingmagic45: Well, “Dragon Age” has kind of a nice ring to it.

Realitybytes: Um, no. Just no.

Makingmagic45: Or not.

Realitybytes: Nevermind, the title can come later. The important thing is that we clear a few things up about how this is going to work. I, Barrod Tethras, 32nd Viscount of Kirkwall, hereby to undertake the dangerous mission of publishing your dirty little secret in a manner that will in no way allow for it to be traced back to you in exchange for a mere 40% of any profits we may make.

SIlvergirl91: You will not. You’re a blackmailing teenage hacker, you get 5%.

Realitybytes: I helped! 30%

Silvergirl91: 10% and I won’t tell your dad.

Realitybytes: Tell my dad? What are you, six? 20%.

Makingmagic45: Don’t I get any say in this?

Silvergirl91: 12% and I’ll forget you also sent threatening messages.

Realitybytes: Tell me, how did you manage to convince a doctor to sew you two together at the hip?

Makingmagic45: Oh, very funny.

Silvergirl91: Valen needed a big sister.

Makingmagic45: Really?

Silvergirl91: Duh, you are so the little brother.

Realitybytes: Hey, what’s going on over there? Are you two hugging? There’s no hugging in business!

Silvergirl91: You’re just jealous.

Realitybytes: Am not!

Silvergirl91: You so are.

Makingmagic45: Oh boy

Realitybytes: Valen, call off your attack dog already.

Makingmagic45: I warned you. You’re the one who wanted to meet her.

SIlvergirl91: Instead of a dark lord you have a queen. Eat it.

Makingmagic45: Why didn’t your mom name you Verena?

SIlvergirl91: A stunning lack of foresight.

*

INCOMING CALL FROM: YOUR GRACE

“So, have you picked a pseudonym yet?”

“Yeah, actually, but I wanted to run it by you first.”

“Me?”

“Well, yeah. I was kind of thinking of going by ‘Tethrys’. Barrod? Barrod are you still there?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah, it seemed fitting. Sort of an homage to the original storyteller. Bad idea?”

“No! No, fine idea, just fine.”

“Aww, did I make you feel something?”

“No, you did not, shut up. Stop laughing at me, that is not allowed.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re still doing it! Fine, I’m not talking to you until you get this out of your system.”

CALL ENDED

*

“Cheers!”

“Cheers!. You know, up until this last year I thought that alcoholic writer thing was just a stereotype.”

“Livin’ the dream, baby!”

“I can’t believe it’s over. That was the most insane thing I have ever been through.”

“I can’t believe we did it at all.”

“So, where do you think Solas and Lavellan are now?”

“Oh, off somewhere exploring the Fade. That’s what Solas would want, anyway.”

“Too bad he’s here physically and she’s there. How do you think that works?”

“Technically he can’t go very far because you do have to actually move to find new areas in the Fade, but I guess they make do. Or...”

“Or what?”

“If he still had the artifact he took out of her arm he could go into the Fade physically, too. But what are the chances of that happening?”

“His body is still in the Chamber of Sleepers, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, of course. Has to be.”

“Absolutely. One of the Kings just vanishing is the sort of thing security would notice.”

“Definitely.”

“And it’s not like anyone would want to cover that up because that would pose all sorts of uncomfortable questions.”

“No. No one would do that…”

“Um…”

 

THE END


	13. Epilogue

How long had they been walking? It was years, surely, but there was no way to tell; time has no meaning in the Fade. In all this while she has not turned to face him and he has not spoken to her; he has read enough Tevinter fairy tales to know the rules. Always she has stayed ahead of him, her outline on the horizon, seemingly ready to vanish but never completely beyond his sight. They have passed wonders he one day dreamed of showing her, horrors he has long avoided, kings and peasants, warriors and priests, echoes of battles fought so long ago that the ghosts that re-enact them have lost all but the vaguest of shapes and they do not stop. He will follow without question. He has known this since he first caught sight of her, recognized the shape of her shoulders and the way she held her head. Facing away from him, she had let him see her, limned with the fiery magic of the Fade, and without a word walked away slowly enough that he might catch up with her. And the next morning he had scribbled a speech with a dripping pen and made preparations to leave the world as hastily as he could without creating suspicion. She is, and always has been, the undoing of him and all his careful plans. 

Perhaps he has simply become addled from the Fade but he thinks he is beginning to recognize the areas through which they pass. A settlement in the Hinterlands destroyed by fire and crumbling mountains, the battlements of an ancient fortress in the Frostbacks, a grove in Crestwood so green and tender that it hurt to look. And now...this. 

He knows this place well. He had not forgotten, though often he has wished for that luxury. If only he could forget the harrowed earth, the mute faceless bodies lying so bonelessly still, the smell of ozone and blood, and the sucking emptiness that follows an explosion. He had not expected to see this place again but he must admit it is fitting. He thinks she has finally stopped moving. She is standing in the middle of her memory, head lowered, and the wind-that-is-not-wind is brushing her hair this way and that. He can see the curve of her neck and his palms itch with the desire to cup it as he once did. As he once dared to do. She will turn around soon, she must, and whatever comes will be terrible. 

For a split second he thinks the fire hers, but then he remembers fire has never been her weapon of choice. He throws himself to the ground to avoid the next swing and the demon roars at him. He brings his arms up, barely managing to deflect the worst of the heat, fingers twisting sigils of protection. He has no staff, he could not bring it with him without someone knowing, but he is not---

The blade that cuts the rage demon in two glows a color that does not exist in the waking world, and the frustrated halves of the angry spirit fall into piles of smoldering embers. She banishes the sword-construct with a flick of her fingers and but she does not offer him a hand of assistance. Her left arm from the elbow down is still that mechanical marvel the dwarves had wrought for her and it has a gleam all its own. He stands.

“Wolf King,” she acknowledges him. He bows his head.

“Fade-Walker.”

Her lips twitch in imitation of a smile.  
“Yes, I suppose I have earned that title.” Her voice too has changed, it is full of strange harmonics and sudden chords as if the Fade had made her into an instrument. He had not been close enough to see before how the outline of her body is not clearly defined, how it seems to bend and flicker like a candle-flame and how the edges of her burn. Beneath the memory of the armor she wore on that last day he can see the shadow of the courting-knot he had given her, now grown into a wild bramble across her chest and anchored with thorns. She has not aged. Her eyes---he swallows---her eyes are the color of the Fade.

The wind blows ashes into their eyes and sets distant suggestions of flags waving. 

“Where is this place?”

“Do you not recognize it?”

“We passed where it would have been in reality long ago.”

“True. This is where I found myself after the Veil ruptured. It was empty then,” she turned to look over the landscape, “but I filled it. It was the first thing I built. It came…” her laughter was a darting thing with sharp claws, “...naturally.”

“How long have we walked?”

“Longer than I did to find you, but then I took you the long way on purpose. It seemed a fittingly ironic penance for you given that you always did want to see more of the Fade. I also had the benefit of a guide who knew shortcuts.”

“Who, or what?”

“Cole. He found me, can you believe it? I think he must have begged favors from every sentient creature in the Fade to track me down. He will not come out while you are here,” she said as he turned surreptitiously to scan his surroundings. “He has not forgiven you.” Solas winced and let it show. His gentle friend had refused his company since he heard of Solas’ plans to bring down the Veil, and apparently time is not enough to heal all wounds.

“I find it hard to believe that Cole would approve of building a place like this.”

“He thought it better than the alternative.” She nodded towards the remains of the rage demon. “I nearly became one of those things. I suppose congratulations are in order, you achieved everything you wanted.”

“Once I would have agreed with that.”

“No? You restored the empire, brought down the Veil, re-established elvhen supremacy…” She tilted her head and loose strands of hair drifted around her face. “I have even become a mage in spite of myself. Was there something more you wanted?” At least her mockery was familiar, though it cut.

“I think you may be somewhat more than a mage now.”

The Fade has tides much as large bodies of water do, although here currents lack the restriction of gravity and thus may move in any direction they please. Simply standing in place she is causing ripples in the Fade, and little wavelets of energy dash themselves to pieces at her feet. He is not surprised. She has always had her own gravitational pull, he could not so much as throw a stick around her without it arcing back to him.

“Perhaps. You have not answered my question.”

“Because you already know the answer to it.”

“I used to think I did.” 

“I never deceived you on that account, not once.” Holding her gaze is like holding the gaze of the ocean but he does it, watching the impossible colors of her eyes surge.

“But you wanted your empire more. I only wanted you.”

He has no answer. There is none. She looked down at her hands, both the true and the mechanical and flexed her fingers.  
“Once you told me that immortality was a natural outgrowth of the magic the ancient elves used. This does not feel natural. Or perhaps the Dalish are simply made of inferior stuff as you always suspected.”

“No,” he clenches his own hands to keep himself from reaching for hers. “Immortality is meant to be accrued over decades of slow exposure to magic.” 

“It burns.” She squeezed her eyes shut and the corona around her head flared. “Have you been burning all this time?”

“I had forgotten that it hurt, I have not been mortal in...a very long time. But what happened to you is an abomination in the truest sense of the word. It is beyond my understanding how you survived.”

“Did I? I suppose I am alive by some definition of the word, although how much of me is Fade and how much is your Lavellan I cannot say.” She sighed and it rippled through her, blurring her features for a moment. 

“We are neither of us who we were.”

“Has kingship changed you so?”

“Not kingship.”

A thousand plans he dreamed of before her ancestors were even conceived dashed to pieces with the simple fact of her existence, the singular, unalterable force she exuded on the world around her. Single-handedly she had unbalanced every equation, untied every knot he had made in the tapestry of his scheming and then dragged him along in her wake like a shooting star.

“Sweet-talker.” She shook her head slowly, wearily. “Tell me, with all your wisdom was there no other way this could have ended?”

“We might have reversed our positions, but I have come to believe that we would always have met here at the end.”

“When did you become a believer in fate?”

“Not in fate, in overwhelming probability.” He has created new laws of physics attempting to explain her, reverse-engineered an entire system of measurement, and still every scenario he could conceive of had led back to her. “I can no longer imagine a world where you existed and did not bring me to my knees, one way or another.”

Her eyes, already liquid, fill again and spill over. He wonders if her tears burn, or whether they will simply turn to diamonds before they hit the ground.

“I thought to bring you here to kill you. It seemed fitting. Here I caught glimpses of you with your wives and your,” the word caught on her lips and she tripped over it, “your children. I had learned enough tricks that I could have poisoned the minds of your advisors, driven your queens mad. I could have brought down your empire brick by smoking brick. Instead I made phantasms with your face and I killed them, hundreds of them while Cole watched. And when I was done, do you know what he said? He urged me to forgive you even though he could not.”

He did not dare move.

“I am tired, Solas. So tired. Tired of fighting, tired of running, tired of hating you. I am tired of waiting.”

The pause is full of stars.

“Aren’t you?”

Her hand, her living hand opens towards him. Impossible, fragile, a spiderweb bridge with the sun rising in its strands. It cannot possibly hold them. He cannot refuse. He takes it in both of his own, his eyes blurring because she is still tangible, still solid and somehow here at the end of all things. He can do this, pull her close and push his cheek into her hair, crushing the spirit-thorns growing out of her into his own chest never minding the pain because finally there is no other obstacle, no other excuse not to. He is allowed feel her breathe and shake with the tears soaking his collar, he can promise her that everything will be all right. At last. This moment was hundreds of years in the making, and somewhere in the overheated clanging of his mind is a voice insisting that it was all worth it. 

“Come. Come with me.” Her voice slants like light across his shoulder and he leans into it.

“Where?”

She pulls back only far enough to see his face.

“Does it matter?”

“No.” Like a man blind he traces her lips with his fingers. “Not in the least.”

She takes his hand again, and walking backwards on her heels, leads him somewhere, and the edges of the place they leave behind begins to evaporate like water in the sun.


End file.
